Without having strong feelings towards either team in this year's Super Bowl, I embraced the game as an opportunity to find some fun new recipes for snacks (did you expect anything less from me??!). So on more than one evening last week, I spent an undisclosed length of time scouring Pinterest and the internet and countless blogs for recipes. We ended up with a feast, so check out these recipes!​

First, I enlisted my husband to make deviled eggs (I must admit the only reason deviled eggs were on the menu was so I could decorate them! This might be my most Pinterest-worthy item ever!!). When he asked my advice on what to put in them and I answered with about 5 suggestions, he responded by walking out of the kitchen to retrieve his iPad so he could look up deviled egg recipes (hello? did I not just give you 5 great ideas?!). Ad-libbing eventually ensued (he finally took my suggestion to add grainy mustard to the egg mixture, for which I earned a single nod of approval) so no recipe to share. But remember this football decoration for next season!!!

Appetizer numero uno was: Spinach Dip Made With Greek Yogurt (from Simply Allis). The name pretty much sums it up (yep, spinach and yogurt were the 2 main ingredients), but the result was WAY better than any spinach dip I've ever had (store-bought seriously pales in comparison). I blanched an entire 9-ounce bag of fresh baby spinach, drained it, let it cool, then chopped it. Sautéed some garlic, added the spinach and some salt and pepper and dried dill, then stirred the flavorful veggie concoction into several oversized dollops of nonfat plain greek yogurt. And that was it! So simple and guilt-free and amazingly delicious. We dipped pita chips, pretzels, and crudités in it, all of which were equally wonderful. Oh, and the dip tastes pretty darn fantastic just on a spoon.

​Roasted Chickpeas are something that keeps popping up for me on Pinterest (are they trying to tell me something?!) that I've become rather intrigued, so I finally tried it for the game (using a recipe from the Modern Parents Messy Kids blog). I ended up doing a "double roast" of the beans as we deemed them not-crunchy-enough after I took them out of the oven the first time, but after another round in a low-heat oven, the result satisfies every craving for crunch. Plus the smoky spice blend makes this snack even more irresistible. I'd say the leftovers are going to be great added to salads.

​Next up: Mac. And. Cheese. I've really been meaning to grow up for a while and shed our dependency on Kraft blue box mac and cheese, so this recipe was a big step up for me. I really grabbed the bull by the horns with this one (if I do say so myself): Three Cheese Mini Macs, from Food & Wine. No training wheels, no stepping stones, I just went for it. Really went for it. And, of course, narrated along the way with some pretty fancy words I've heard on cooking shows before: first, a roux ("am I really qualified for this?"), then a béchamel ("holy cow, is this really happening?"), then cheese gets stirred in and melts and becomes this incredible velvety cheesy sauce (notice how the color doesn't look like something out-of-this-world? I feel better about myself not eating florescent orange food).

If you failed to click on the link previously, don't make the same mistake this time:Three Cheese Mini Macs. You're welcome.

Now, it wouldn't have been the Super Bowl (at least in my husband's eyes) if we didn't have wings. However, I grimace anytime he brings home those ready-made ones from the grocery store deli counter (grease-filled take-out container, anyone?), and restaurant wings are nothing to write home about in my mind. So I searched high and low for an at-home, healthy (well, "healthy") baked wings recipe. ​Ta-daaaaa!

​Crispy Baked Honey BBQ Wings, from A Night Owl, was a total winner recipe. The wings were coated in a seasoned flour mixture and baked, turning once. The secret, however, was to dip them in the sauce that had been simmering on the stove and doing magical things (basically, bbq sauce kicked up with some additional ingredients, most notably, honey), then return them to the pan to bake for another 5 minutes. Do you see how golden and sticky and caramel-y they got? In the oven!

I have so much fun reading your cooking blogs...the recipes you choose are interesting, your commentary about how you chose them and make them often make me laugh...and it is clear you are having fun. Wish I had been watching the SB with you!!!!

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Sarah C.

﻿Hi! I'm the creator of Pot Belly Bird, hailing from Spokane, WA. Here in my blog, I'll tell you about all the fun stuff I'm up to in addition to making cards, like cooking or biking or gardening!﻿